The pesukim describing Rachel and Leah are very difficult to understand – Rachel was “beautiful” and Leah had “soft eyes” and Yaakov therefore loved Rachel. Does this mean that Leah was not “beautiful?”
The surprising answer is that – the Torah is telling us that Rachel was born perfect and Leah not. Just as Yaakov was born perfect and Eisav was born challenged, so too were Rachel and Leah.
Yaakov, from birth, was perfect – a tzaddik, who until age 77 never left the walls of the yeshiva. Yaakov was a genetic tzaddik from birth and he remained so his entire life. Eisav was born challenged and he never managed to surpass his handicaps.
Similarly, Rachel, from birth was born a tzadeket. The Mefarshim go to great lengths describing her incredible level of modesty, how she always tried to minimize herself, the deep love for her sister, to such an extent that she refused to embarrass Leah even at the cost of her own future.
When Yaakov saw Rachel, he loved her, because he and Rachel were the same! A tzaddik and a tzadeket, the perfect match made in Heaven.
Leah and Rachel were identical twins but Leah, from birth, was handicapped. Eisav was physically handicapped, born with physical character traits and urges that made his life more challenging. Leah was born with the same spiritual beauty as Rachel, but she was handicapped by circumstances. From birth Leah was the “underdog,” constantly battling against circumstances, to enable her inner spirituality shine for all the world to see.
Perhaps the best way to describe the difference between Rachel and Leah is the difference between a “tzadeket from birth” vs. a “ba’alat teshuva.” The first is on a totally higher plane and the second is constantly striving to reach that plane.
The children of Rachel were perfect tzaddikim from birth. The children of Leah were constantly getting into trouble. Reuven switching his father’s bed from the tent of Bilhah to Leah’s. Shimon and Levi killing the inhabitants of Shechem. Selling Yosef into slavery. Yehuda and Tamar.
It was in this melting pot that the fabric of Am Yisrael was forged.
Am Yisrael cannot be built on a foundation of only tzaddikim or only ba’alei teshuva, it requires a harmonious combination of both.
It was necessary for Reuven to mess up, for Shimon and Levi to mess up, for Yehuda to mess up and for Yosef to be sold into slavery, to develop the framework for Am Yisrael.
Yes, the sons of Leah were prone to “messing up,” just like their mother was prone to using questionable tactics to achieve her purpose. However, by messing up, they created the essential building block of teshuva in Am Yisrael. Without this building block, the eternity of Am Yisrael would have been threatened.
Reuven lived the rest of his life trying to make amends for his sin with Bilhah. Levi did teshuva and channeled his zealous nature in a positive direction, becoming the Torah leader in Am Yisrael. Yehuda, instead of trying to save face, admitted his error with Tamar and thus acquired the necessary skill set for monarchy.
Leah’s sons were not born perfect like Rachel’s. They managed, however, to transcend their handicaps and eventually rose to the same supreme level, by virtue of their own efforts, not simply by accident of birth. As a result, they assumed most of the leadership roles in Am Yisrael, Torah (Yissachar), Priesthood (Levi) and Monarchy (Yehuda).
Yosef was the perfect tzaddik, born to the perfect mother, Rachel. However, this “accident of nature” was insufficient to ensure the eternity of Am Yisrael. Yosef, the perfect tzaddik had to be lowered in stature, cast into the depravity of Egypt to test the veracity of his tzaddikut and have him emerge unscathed. The purpose of this was to develop a sense of humility and mutual responsibility toward his other brothers.
These are the essential building blocks that forged Am Yisrael. The mechanism of teshuva, to be able fix things, even when Am Yisrael “mess up.” The mechanisms of humility and mutual responsibility.
Next week we celebrate Chanukah, the festival of the oil. Am Yisrael are compared to olives (Jeremiah 11:16). Why is this?
Olives on their own, when picked straight from the tree are inedible, even harmful. However, if you give the olives a few “smacks on the head” in a mortar and pestle, what comes out? A few drops of the purest oil, fit for lighting the Menorah in the Mikdash. If you then take these “smacked” olives and grind them up further in a mill, squash the resulting mush into sacks and pile rocks on them, or place them under a press and apply pressure, more oil comes out, much more than from the first smack.
This is Am Yisrael in a nutshell. It would be nice if the oil would gush out on its own, without any outside influence. However, this never happens. We need a “mild” wakeup call from Above and this should do the trick and awaken Am Yisrael from our slumber. However, sometimes a little “smack on the head” is not sufficient. Sometimes we need to be pounded into a pulp and squashed for it to happen. However, in the end – the oil always comes out, Am Yisrael always returns to their essence.
Parshat Vayeishev is the secret formula for Am Yisrael – the forging of our nation. It was not a once-off occurrence. The same process we read about in this week’s parsha takes place in each and every generation, over and over again.
The good news and the miracle of Channukah is – in the end, the oil always emerges. Am Yisrael always triumphs.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: Why, after HaKadosh Baruch Hu changing Yaakov’s name to Yisrael, do we also continue to call him Yaakov?
Answer to Last Shiur’s Trivia Question: Did Reuven sleep with Bilhah? No. He simply moved Yaakov’s bed from the tent of Bilhah to the tent of his mother Leah (Rashi).
*the JP is for the Jewish Press
No comments:
Post a Comment